All across this country legislators and policy makers are discussing the Fraudclosure Crisis. The suits are there from the banks and the foreclosure mills. Policy wonks are there from think tanks and universities, but the people who are most directly impacted by all of this are excluded. Here in this state our legislators are meeting and they’ll hear from all the usual suspects…but are consumers ever invited to tell their side of the story?
You will get your chance on March 9, 2011 when we hold the 2nd Annual Rally in Tallahassee. We want to see thousands of homeowners in the state capitol telling your legislators how Fraudclosuregate has personally impacted you. And now the Mother Jones Article….
After 18 months and more than 700 sworn testimonies, Congress’ Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wrapped up its hearings last September with three unscheduled witnesses””a last-minute plea from a lawyer got them included, for five minutes each, at the tail end of the commission’s hearing in Sacramento.
A relative helped 79-year-old Lovie Hollis to the microphone. She testified (pdf) that she and her husband Grafton had raised five daughters in their Sacramento home and had paid off their mortgage but had to sell in 2006 when Grafton could no longer get up the stairs. She did not understand the terms on their new home and was unable to pay when the monthly rate suddenly adjusted upward to nearly three times the original mortgage. She answered an ad offering loan modification help. “Tom” operated out of an office in Hollis’s neighborhood. He told her to stop making loan payments while he worked on her case, took her money (and her car), and fled. Hollis, now a widow, lost her home.
